A liquid crystal display (LCD: Liquid Crystal Display) arranged in a liquid crystal display apparatus in the related art includes, e.g., a liquid crystal panel having a color filter substrate colored in red, green, and blue, a liquid crystal layer, and the like, and a backlight arranged at a back surface side of the liquid crystal panel.
In the liquid crystal display apparatus, voltages are changed to control twists of liquid crystal molecules in the liquid crystal layer, and white light emitted by the backlight passes through the liquid crystal layer according to the twists of the liquid crystal molecules, and then passes through the color filter colored in respective colors. Since the white light emitted by the backlight passes through the color filter, the white light is colored in red, green, and blue, whereby an image is displayed.
In the past, CCFL (Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lighting) has been used as a light source for a backlight in an LCD incorporated into a liquid crystal display apparatus and other electronic equipment. Recently, an LED (Light Emitting Diode) is regarded as a promising light source in place of this CCFL. When the LED is used, a higher efficiency and a higher color gamut can be achieved.
In an LCD in the related art, a backlight is arranged at a back surface side of a liquid crystal panel. Therefore, it used to be difficult to reduce the thickness of the LCD. Accordingly, a liquid crystal display apparatus has been developed, in which light sources such as LEDs are arranged along each side of a liquid crystal panel, instead of arranging the backlight at the back surface side of the liquid crystal panel, in order to make the apparatus thinner, and wherein lights of the light sources are emitted from side surfaces of the liquid crystal panel and are reflected and diffused to emit white light onto the liquid crystal panel (for example, see Patent Literature 1 and Patent Literature 2). Since the light sources are arranged at positions along each side of the liquid crystal panel, this apparatus can be made thinner than the apparatus in which the backlight is arranged at the back surface side of the liquid crystal panel.
Recently, a display apparatus has been suggested, in which LEDs emitting lights of three primary colors, i.e., red, blue, and green, are used as light sources, and the lights are emitted from side surfaces of a liquid crystal panel, so that the LEDs function as a backlight (for example, see Patent Literature 3).